Sugar - the bitter truth

I recommend sticking to sugar.

I recommend sticking to sugar.

I agree with this. I've never understood why there is such a fear over sugar. It's mostly derived from sugar cane, which is just a sweet and edible plant. The other, less common source, is sugar beets. So what if they bleach it. If that worries someone for whatever reason, they can purchase unbleached sugar.

All this fuss over honey, agave nectar, stevia, aspartame, etc. to replace something that most people have no need to replace. If you're diabetic then worry about it, but if not stop stressing. Just watch your overall calorie count.

And honestly, I agree to a point with your other post about managing risk. It is impossible to ever prove anything perfectly safe, but the level of caution one uses in inserting certain items in their diet is a personal decision. There's a massive gulf, though, between believing every company and government is out there to solely protect you and has your best interests at heart, and thinking that the sky is falling.

The problem with these boards is that so many people seem to fall into that latter category because the amount of scare mongering that is out there. Let's be honest, the next big killer product or cancer agent will come out of no where. How many people 10 years ago were really worried about HPV as a cause of cancer or even knew what it was? What about BRCA 1 & 2? SARS, AIDS, MRSA, etc. were surprises. It's not coming from something like aspartame that has been studied inside and out.

ETA: MRSA may not actually belong here given the decades of warnings about the overuse of antibiotics.

Raw stevia is bitter, but it's also green. Large amounts of the processed stuff can still have a bitter after taste. Also, large amount of stevia also apparently changes your DNA. Or something. Chemical or plant, if it's a low cal sweetener it's probably gonna kill you!

Please tell me you're joking and I just missed it.

Raw stevia is bitter, but it's also green. Large amounts of the processed stuff can still have a bitter after taste. Also, large amount of stevia also apparently changes your DNA. Or something. Chemical or plant, if it's a low cal sweetener it's probably gonna kill you!

Please tell me you're joking and I just missed it.

I believe she is referring to Epigenetics. Certain parts of your DNA can be expressed more during your lifetime through DNA methylation or histone modification. For example, if you were born a lean mean muscle machine but over your life time you became obese and diabetic, you will pass along any fat genes you attained during your lifetime to your child. Your child will be born obese and insulin resistant.

Just...no. methylation does not change your genetic code. You cannot 'add' genes. You can change what gets expressed by silencing part of the genome. Epigenetic inheritance is far more of a factor in bacteria than animals.

Raw stevia is bitter, but it's also green. Large amounts of the processed stuff can still have a bitter after taste. Also, large amount of stevia also apparently changes your DNA. Or something. Chemical or plant, if it's a low cal sweetener it's probably gonna kill you!

Please tell me you're joking and I just missed it.

I believe she is referring to Epigenetics. Certain parts of your DNA can be expressed more during your lifetime through DNA methylation or histone modification. For example, if you were born a lean mean muscle machine but over your life time you became obese and diabetic, you will pass along any fat genes you attained during your lifetime to your child. Your child will be born obese and insulin resistant.

Just...no. methylation does not change your genetic code. You cannot 'add' genes. You can change what gets expressed by silencing part of the genome. Epigenetic inheritance is far more of a factor in bacteria than animals.

Yes, i understand. Was trying to explain it in laymen terms but i'm not sure if i agree with you that it only occurs in bacteria. I haven't had a chance to read much about Epigenetics and Obesity, I just know that there are still unanswered questions and research needed to be done on the obesity epidemic and feel that Epigenetics is a contributing factor. We are now dealing with childhood obesity as the medical community seems to have given up on Adult onset diabetes. My take is that people who became obese over their lifetime, passed along fat genes or any genes that they expressed more in their lifetime to their children.

WOW, Nobody is advocating a diet of all sugar and junk food... If that is what you got out of this tread, you should really work on reading compression.

There are people all over this board advocating diets filled with all kinds of foods I would consider garbage - "diet" salad dressing and sugar-filled American yogurt and "fat free" snacks and on and on and on and on and on. OptiLean and SlimFast and meal replacement bars. Mass produced crap marketed to Joe Sixpack as THE answer to their weight loss woes. It's a multi billion dollar industry in the US - it's absolutely huge - and it's a taxpayer-subsidized contributor to the obesity problem in this country.

A tablespoon of Hidden Valley Ranch Fat-Free isn't going to kill anybody, but if your diet is full of this kind of crap then you're kidding yourself if you think that you're making moves to improve your health. And, like it or not, there are folks doing it all over MFP.

As to the Lustig naysayers - how many of you are biochemists? I went to the links that were provided earlier and read through all of the comments. Rather than seeing Lustig getting "owned" as was described, what I saw was a small group of folks who frequented a blog written by somebody who disagreed with Lustig's findings, and who honed in on one mistake and one misinterpretation in one particular Lustig lecture. It's pretty hard to change the minds of people who live their life in an echo chamber because those people like to congratulate each other frequently for their own belief system. Lustig didn't see any point in trying, and I don't blame him.

Lustig isn't God - far from it - but his points about avoiding processed foods in general and HFCS in particular ring true. Those foods' contributions to this country's obesity epidemic can't be denied. His points about the politics of food in this country are right on. This lecture is just like everything else available out there for self-education - take what makes sense out of it for you, and apply it to your life. If it doesn't make sense, move on.

An article about this debate from the New York Times, for those interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I have been avoiding sugars and carbs for a while now and I have to say I have never felt better. So, personally, I couldn't give a **** who is right. Low carb works for me. And, in the end, that's all that counts as far as I'm concerned.

I can't help but notice that people seem more keen to prove themselves right than to help other members on these boards. Sad, really.

What is interesting about those scientific studies is that they are always on mice, and they always include a dose that is astronomically higher than anything a human would eat in a day, or a year. The logical statement goes something like this:

Chemical X causes Y in rats.

Applied to humans:

If chemical X caused Y in rats, then chemical X will cause Y in humans.

There are two HUGE issues with this line of logic, which the entire scientific community completely ignores so they can get grants. They are the following:
1) Human beings are not rats. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/science/testing-of-some-deadly-diseases-on-mice-mislead-report-says.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

2) Dose matters. If I consume a banana, I will get a healthy dose of potassium that will lower my blood pressure and provide me with several health benefits. If I get a lethal injection, I am getting a deadly dose of potassium, which will kill me. This concept is closely related with Hormesis. Basically, you cannot draw a conclusion from static dose amounts. A little bit of fasting is good. Starvation is bad. A little bit of cardio is good. A lot of cardio could cause a heart attack. A little bit of fat will cause you have a healthy level of hormones. A lot of fat could make you fat and cause a heart attack. A little bit of sugar will help me build glycogen stores in my muscle so I can lift heavier and longer. A lot of sugar will probably cause me to get diabetes and kill my pancreas.

What I am getting at here is the concept of chronic toxicity. All things, including water, can kill you at a high enough dose. Therefore, for any given substance, a valid scientific study should ascertain at what does does a certain chemical cause chronic toxicity.

Our bodies clearly like sugar. It tastes good. The question should be, "How much sugar is bad for us?"

As to the Lustig naysayers - how many of you are biochemists?

*Raises hand* This isn't my area of expertise exactly, but I know enough about basic sugar metabolism to know that his claims that sugar is "toxic" are utter crap unless you are dosing a person with astronomically high amounts (note that water is also toxic at astronomical amounts). It's too bad he can't chill out with all of the yelling "TOXIC!" and "POISON!" because that nonsense completely overshadows all of the perfectly reasonable things he has to say about the potential dangers of sugar over-consumption.

I went to the links that were provided earlier and read through all of the comments. Rather than seeing Lustig getting "owned" as was described, what I saw was a small group of folks who frequented a blog written by somebody who disagreed with Lustig's findings, and who honed in on one mistake and one misinterpretation in one particular Lustig lecture.

I'm assuming you didn't take the time to read the Huffington Post article I posted yesterday. It does a good job of explaining many of the reasons that Lustig's theories don't make sense and goes into detail describing studies that refute him.

Lustig isn't God - far from it - but his points about avoiding processed foods in general and HFCS in particular ring true.

He may have a good point about avoiding processed foods, sure. But his theories are not valid and it robs his calls to avoid processed foods and excess sugar of their credibility. There are plenty of experts who agree with him about processed foods and excess sugar but still think his theory that sugar is poison and fruit is evil is full of crap. As for HFCS, I think the jury's still out on that one. It's possible that he'll turn out to be right (for completely different reasons possibly), but it's equally possible that he will be wrong.

Those foods' contributions to this country's obesity epidemic can't be denied. His points about the politics of food in this country are right on.

You won't find many educated people who would argue that a lot of processed food and sugar is actually good for your body. But that's not really the issue at hand here. If you read the thread carefully, you will find that most people are simply stating that they find Dr. Lustig's specific theories to be invalid, but that they agree that eating a lot of processed food and sugar isn't good for a person. There are innumerable physiological and biochemical reasons why this is probably so. However, none of those reasons involve sugar being toxic or consumption of fruit being bad for a person.

An article about this debate from the New York Times, for those interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Thanks for sharing. This is a good read, but it never addresses the question at hand -- the "toxicity" of sugar. The author is arguing that excessive sugar consumption may be part of the etiology of diseases like diabetes and heart disease -- which is possibly true and deserves being investigated by well designed studies. Unfortunately that keeps getting overshadowed because Dr. Lustig's can't stop himself from running around shouting that sugar is a poison. Sugar is not poison. It is metabolized as a nutrient, used for energy, and fructose has actually been shown to have many benefits for the body (http://co2factor.blogspot.com/2012/04/benefits-of-fructose.html).

If you'd like to see a detailed and fair discussion of Dr. Lustig's theories and related studies, including some of the basic biochemistry of why his theories are inaccurate, you can look back through the thread and find the Huffington Post article I mentioned.

As to the Lustig naysayers - how many of you are biochemists?

*Raises hand* This isn't my area of expertise exactly, but I know enough about basic sugar metabolism to know that his claims that sugar is "toxic" are utter crap unless you are dosing a person with astronomically high amounts (note that water is also toxic at astronomical amounts). It's too bad he can't chill out with all of the yelling "TOXIC!" and "POISON!" because that nonsense completely overshadows all of the perfectly reasonable things he has to say about the potential dangers of sugar over-consumption.

I went to the links that were provided earlier and read through all of the comments. Rather than seeing Lustig getting "owned" as was described, what I saw was a small group of folks who frequented a blog written by somebody who disagreed with Lustig's findings, and who honed in on one mistake and one misinterpretation in one particular Lustig lecture.

I'm assuming you didn't take the time to read the Huffington Post article I posted yesterday. It does a good job of explaining many of the reasons that Lustig's theories don't make sense and goes into detail describing studies that refute him.

Lustig isn't God - far from it - but his points about avoiding processed foods in general and HFCS in particular ring true.

He may have a good point about avoiding processed foods, sure. But his theories are not valid and it robs his calls to avoid processed foods and excess sugar of their credibility. There are plenty of experts who agree with him about processed foods and excess sugar but still think his theory that sugar is poison and fruit is evil is full of crap. As for HFCS, I think the jury's still out on that one. It's possible that he'll turn out to be right (for completely different reasons possibly), but it's equally possible that he will be wrong.

Those foods' contributions to this country's obesity epidemic can't be denied. His points about the politics of food in this country are right on.

You won't find many educated people who would argue that a lot of processed food and sugar is actually good for your body. But that's not really the issue at hand here. If you read the thread carefully, you will find that most people are simply stating that they find Dr. Lustig's specific theories to be invalid, but that they agree that eating a lot of processed food and sugar isn't good for a person. There are innumerable physiological and biochemical reasons why this is probably so. However, none of those reasons involve sugar being toxic or consumption of fruit being bad for a person.

An article about this debate from the New York Times, for those interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Thanks for sharing. This is a good read, but it never addresses the question at hand -- the "toxicity" of sugar. The author is arguing that excessive sugar consumption may be part of the etiology of diseases like diabetes and heart disease -- which is possibly true and deserves being investigated by well designed studies. Unfortunately that keeps getting overshadowed because Dr. Lustig's can't stop himself from running around shouting that sugar is a poison. Sugar is not poison. It is metabolized as a nutrient, used for energy, and fructose has actually been shown to have many benefits for the body (http://co2factor.blogspot.com/2012/04/benefits-of-fructose.html).

If you'd like to see a detailed and fair discussion of Dr. Lustig's theories and related studies, including some of the basic biochemistry of why his theories are inaccurate, you can look back through the thread and find the Huffington Post article I mentioned.

Good morning!

Re my above comment about Stevia tasting bitter. I tried it mixed in a hot drink a while back - I think it was hot tea. It tasted bitter. So why if it supposed to be a natural sugar why does it have that nasty bitter chemical taste? Compared to real sugar, it has that fake chemical taste and that is why I question if it is so good.(compared to the sweet taste of real sugar)

What I am saying is that it "might" be ok for you to eat, but my tastebuds are detecting a fake chemically taste.

I thought about this just now, and I could taste that fake sweetener in diet Coke. Not sure but they might use Equal. I also used a few Equal packets on cold food and I detected that fake chemical taste. So compared to sugar, I dont think a bit of real sugar will kill you, unless you are diabetic or something, however, why would i want to put some nasty chemical tasting fake food in my mouth? blech!

I did try some rather bitter tasting greens - arugula for one, and yes it does taste bitter, but that is a raw vegetable, so any bitterness is from the thing that makes it green - celery is bitter the darker green it is. (chorophyll).

I must have sensitive taste buds as I can tell when food has things in it, like when they put whiskey in bbq sauce, the waitress said you cant taste it, but blech, i could.

so for me, I would ratehr eat natural foods, and not some fake chemical ingredient which taste is terrible, I'd rather not eat any of it. why bother? why make your food full of fake chemical stuff when you can have sweet tasting other food choices?

thats just my opinion of course. Telling me to eat that nasty stuff and saying you enjoy it is like telling me to get a kiss from a cold dead stone statue!

by the way have you read about that Frankenstein food - they have created a hamburger in a petri dish. Now, thats appetizing haha NOT! Guess who wont be standing in line for a taste!

Changing my diet and my relationship with food has actually made me realise that sugar is not a big scary booggie monster, and that eating it in sane and well-planned portions is perfectly healthy. It was actually a pretty awesome discovery.